A fine Wednesday to you, folks! You may be wondering where Taco’s riff is – well, he wasn’t able to make it this week, so we at the Secret Clubhouse decided to throw out some fanart in place of his usual riff. I decided to look for Buffy fanart, because that’s what he’s riffing right now.

And boy, I’ll tell you what, I had a hell of a time finding fanart for Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For some odd reason, I couldn’t find anything that I thought would really work for here. My Google-Fu is shit, guys.

Luckily for me, Ghostie chipped in as well, and by our efforts combined, we managed to find a healthy little cluster of images for you folks to enjoy.

Have a wonderful Wednesday! (How could you not? You’ve been spared from suffering through badfics today!)

One of Ghostie’s finds. Artist is princessamalthea on DeviantART.

This is my find. Spotted it on Pinterest. Unfortunately, I don’t know the artist. Any help would be appreciated!

Another one of Ghostie’s finds: Buffy vs. Twilight, part one, by jarjarrr.

And one more from Ghostie: Buffy vs. Twilight, part two, by jarjarrr again.

Hello, dear Patrons. Lyle’s out today, so I’ve stepped in to gush about two amazing short stories based on “Snow White.” I encountered one while working on the snark of “Poison” and immediately knew I had to contrast the two.

That story, along with the one I will discuss below, is by my most recent favorite author Neil Gaiman. “Snow, Glass, Apples,” which I found in Gaiman’s short story collection Smoke and Mirrors, tells the story of “Snow White” from the perspective of the Evil Queen Stepmother – except that she’s not evil. It takes all of the familiar story elements we know from “Snow White” – the stepmother, the banishment and cutting out her heart, dwarves, poison apples, a prince finding Snow White – and tells them with a twist without assuming we can fill in the parts the author doesn’t feel like telling. It’s a well-crafted story that could stand on its own that at the same time really makes the reader stop and think about the familiar story it’s based on. As Gaiman says in the story intro in Smoke and Mirrors: “I like to think of this story as a virus. Once you’ve read it, you may never be able to read the original story in the same way again.” In a good way.

The other story, “The Sleeper and the Spindle,” was commissioned as fanfiction, more or less. Gaiman chose two of his favorite fairy tales, “Snow White” and “Sleeping Beauty,” and imagined “[…] what would happen if two stories were happening at the same time? And what if the women who were already the subjects of those stories had a little more to do, and were active and not passive … ?” (From the story intro in Trigger Warning.) Snow White has already reached her “happily ever after” and is about to marry the prince when she sets off to find the source of a mysterious epidemic of falling asleep. At the center of it, she finds Sleeping Beauty, but she’s not quite who the reader expects.

This story just came out as an illustrated book by itself, and the samples I’ve seen of the artwork are gorgeous. But that wouldn’t matter if the story weren’t so compelling to begin with.

Both of these stories show fanfiction at its best: well-written stories that use familiar elements in interesting new ways. I strongly suggest you check them out.

Well things happened. An unexpected eye doctor appointment, trying to get stuff done at the DMV, two papers I had to write, a test I had to study for and work made it so that I couldn’t really get anything done for today. So I decided to share some art that I’ve been sitting on for awhile.

Remember The Final Hunt? That painfully bad Bloodborne RWBY crossover? Well, just about everyone knows how RWBY works, but not many people around here have played Bloodborne. Its Lovecraft influence, its dark tones, its meaty combat, all of which is thrown away in The Final Hunt for “FEEL SORRY FOR ME” and melodrama. This drawing, by MenasLG captures it a lot better. The fight beyween the player character and the first non-optional boss fight. Father Gascoigne.

So, I’m kind of an idiot and don’t know how time works, which means my riff didn’t make it on time. Rest assured, this SC is beating himself soundly like the bad little House Elf he is.

…God, I wish someone would give me a sock already.

Well, we can’t just leave you guys without anything to talk about, and I figured there’s not been much Fire Emblem fanart here – kind of odd, given that Herr is riffing the, what, third Fire Emblem fic in the Library? – so I decided to hunt down a personal favorite of mine: A fair amount of the protagonist cast of Awakening, having a good old time.

Sadly, I don’t know who made this, what it’s called, or what site you can find it on; this was found via Uncle Google, and the link led back to GameFAQs. If anybody knows the artist, be sure to toss a name my way so I can credit them properly.

We have no guest for this Sunday so SC found us this gem of fanart to share. This is “The Return of Samurai Jack” by ijul on Deviantart. You can find his gallery here. It’s quite amazing work. Enjoy and we will see you tomorrow!

Heyo, Patrons. SC is currently in a multi-day standoff with Glasses and cannot tear himself away to riff this week. Something about Glasses wanting to host a bunker-wide naked fun-times day with compulsory participation care of a sudden rash of clothing thefts. At this point we’re not really sure which of the two forcible item procurement specialists is to blame for the sudden lack of pants, but we’ve got the Ninja investigating. In any event, SC has locked her on sub-level 32 until she forgets about the whole thing.

It gets weird around here during the off hours.

While all that gets sorted out, I’ve come here to bring you the magic of Dwarf Fortress! Dwarf fortress at its core, is a castle building game where you act as overseer for a bunch of crazy fucks dwarves. Your goal as overseer is to do whatever the hell you want. Well, whatever you want except directly control the dwarves. See, Dwarf Fortress takes a page from an old game called Populous where, despite your powers to control things surrounding your people, their free will is their own, and, often enough, they’ll just do whatever they hell they want rather than what you need them to do. In Dwarf Fortress you do have a kind of pseudo-control over things. You can order that things get built in certain areas, you can order certain items get built, you can even order dwarves to confine themselves to quarters. You certainly seem to have a lot of control.

Hello, everyone! SC is taking the day off because [blue]. Please enjoy this bit of fanart instead. It’s called “S.S.D.D.” which the artist, Mr-Donkeygoat says means “same shit, different dimension.” It’s a cross-over piece of Ghostbusters and Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. While the concept is a bit wtf, the art is fantastic. In fact, go browse this guy’s gallery. He’s super-talented.

He’s got a shinier, updated version of this, but I really like the gritty nature this picture portrays.